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Maybe We Ought to Include a Minus on That Draft Grade for Now

By Brinson | May 29, 2008

Never one to be pessimistic — or anything short of delusional — I had already given Jeff Otah eleventy billion pancakes and Jonathan Stewart roughly 3,600 rushing yards for 2008. Now that I sit back and think about those numbers and realize that neither one are ready for summer practice yet, I feel like it’s kind of important to remember that they are rookies.

Otha’s dealing with something involving his ankle:

Otah, one of the team’s two first-round draft picks, has an ankle injury that’s been bothering him for several months. He hasn’t suited up for this week’s summer school practices, nor did he for minicamp earlier this month.

While Stewart is getting held up by those Donald Duck pranksters out west. Okay, school.

School at Oregon, which uses the quarter system, is still in session, and NFL rules don’t allow players to participate in OTAs until classes have ended. Hurney said Stewart, the team’s top draft pick, is out of the protective boot and is expected to be ready by training camp.

Both should end up being “fine” and ready to start the season. But it’s a nice reminder to take a step back from the seeming r-job we did at the draft and remember that these guys are in fact still rookies. And we do, in fact, still have a long time until the season opens.